The truth comes out – French court Rules al-Dura footage is hoax

I have been following the al-Dura affair for some time now, here are three posts I have written on this topic:

1. The al-Dura cover-up? A court will decide!

2. Al-Dura Trial: Exclusive Reaction From the Paris Courtroom

3. More on the al-Dura affair

I distinctly remember when the footage was shown here in Australia. I was watching the closing ceremony with friends when I received a phone call from my husband who told me that he had just witnessed that the Israeli Defence Force had selectively shot at a young child, that child being al-Dura, and killing him. He was absolutely furious and I was on the other end of the phone call just as dumb founded and upset by the news. Who wouldn’t be upset at this picking off of a child!

But I said to him that we may not have all the facts about this yet. Whatever it was that he had seen on the ABC station, they had portrayed it in such a way that the Israeli Defence Force was already found guilty of a cold blooded murder because of this very selective shooting of an innocent young boy.

The footage of the shooting has continued to be used to incite hatred for Israel across the middle-east.

Today, the French court made its decision on the al-Dura affair.

Phillipe Karsenty says the following about the defamation case made against him and how the court has ruled in his favour…

Today a French court ruled that I did not defame France 2 when I said that its news report was a staged hoax. Because I refused to be brainwashed, I was sued for defamation.

Our victory today was a victory for freedom — the freedom to think and to speak one’s mind; the freedom to question what one is told; and the freedom to disbelieve the solemn pronouncements of others when the individual concludes that his reasoning is correct and that the state and the state-run media — and all of the institutions they represent — are wrong.

The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information — especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe’s most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely.

It is ironic that I, a private individual, had to lecture one of France’s most influential TV stations in order to demonstrate that a child cannot move; lift his head, arm, and leg; stare at the camera; and still be considered “dead” a good 10 seconds after the newscaster tells us “the child is dead.” One need only look at France 2’s own footage to realize that the “death” scene was faked.

And this from IsrealiGirl…

The word is out – French court today ruled in favor of Phillipe Karsenty, overturning a lower court decision that he had libeled France 2 and its Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of knowingly misleading the public about the death of the Palestinian child Mohammed al-Dura in the Gaza Strip in 2000.
The footage in question, shot by Palestinian cameraman and France 2 stringer Talal Abu Rahma, showed the kid Al Dura hiding with his father and then jumped to showing Al Dura lying on the ground apparently dead. The voice over narrative created the impression it was Israel that killed the boy, leading to an unprecedented wave of hatred towards Israel.
Finally the truth comes out – now we’ll see how main stream media in France and the world will react.

The media which was in such a hurry to broadcast to the world that Israel killed Al Dura, is so far relatively silent. Bloggers are taking the lead and reacting to these important news – here is a good summary from Augean Stables which was first out with the news. Just as the lie reached billions of people, we must aim for the truth to do the same.

• Wikipedia on Muhummad al-Durrah

IceRocket Tags: Al-Dura controversy,France 2,Isreali Defence Force,Main Stream Media,Media,Muhammed al Durah,Pallywood,Propaganda

Filed under: History, Islam, Israel, Middle East, News, Political, Religion , Al-Dura controversy, France 2, Main Strema Media, Muhmmed al-Dura, Pallywood, Propoganda